~I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think~

Amazing people who make me go on n on n on:)

19 November, 2011

The Day with the Magnate

My husband is into garment
business-retail and wholesale and the entire big joint family has a few reputed
brands and their distributorship under their growing bellies’ belts. For all
you know if you are wearing good branded clothing and living in the NCR, it
might have somehow channelized through the Arora Parivaar or someone we know
closely we aren’t really THAT big but
then so aren’t the bulls if you look at them standing next to the elephants as
against the dogs. Oho just thinking a
random fact #1 here: if A=B and B=C and thereby A=C, does that mean if I touch
my husband and my husband touches a jacket and that jacket is touched by a
shopkeeper to whom it is sent and then you touch it to buy it, would this imply
that I touched you? Issssshhhh...uncalled-for
display of my mathematical and calculative genius should be kept aside for some
other time.

So when it was heard that
Mr Nitin Kasliwal, the owner of S Kumar’s and Reid N Taylors, is coming to town
for some business expansion meetings and would be visiting the house for lunch,
it was not just another day in the household, heaving with arrangements to
dazzle the business magnate, who basically lives in London now, going to and
fro nationally when required.

Now being the most chotti
bahu not in terms of size or gray matter
of course, I do not care have much
idea about all that’s happening at the top levels, unless rumour/gossip/news
trickles down to me through some kind route. I just heard the oldies talking
about how well read and very intelligent THE man is and among the ladies the
vine was abuzz about how charming and humble is his wife, Jyoti. They spoke of
how varied are his interests and we should open our mouths only if we had
something witty to say. Instantly I decided to shut my gap for I kinda have
this love-hate relationship with trouble and did not want to be the bread
burner with the oven that provides us with our bread and butter. Troubles
love to hate me.

So I sat in a corner
lounge all dressed up while the rest of the jing bang of some thirty people of
the ‘just’ family, ran to and fro making arrangements from laying matching
napkin rings on the dining table, right down to keeping scented door mats on
the threshold. I resigned to the corner with my thoughts but then troubles go
round and strike at the corners first it seems.

The brakes of the long car
came to a screeching halt as a pig came right in front of the car from nowhere.
But I love these street animals-if it
weren’t for them my daughter would never sit put in the car while we commute. We were told that their chartered plane had landed
some half an hour ago and the wait had caused a few yawns in some and
circulation of scandalous bitching amongst the rest of those waiting. The
brakes rang loud like an annoying alarm clock, making you jump at your feet
like you do when the realization sets in early morning that you have grossly
overslept. Settling the creases on the clothes and managing to place the hair
strategically at just the right slant on our foreheads, the pretty ladies
ventured to the door while the men sought to please and welcome. Mr Kasliwal is
known to be a tad particular about stuff and easy to get offended if things are
not to perfection. As for me, this was the materializing of my childhood dream
of watching the President’s salutation first hand on Republic Day at the Rashtrapati Bhawan-only in this case
there were no trumpets and salaami of
bandooks. If I didn’t know better, I might as well look around the milieu with
my Ms Homes invisible hat on, snooping for some hidden terrorists all set to
attack. Ufff....basically saying
there was solemnity and formal seriousness like I have never seen before.

We all smiled-they at us,
we at them and the servants at each other-it
is not every day they saw their masters as submissive as now. The man did have an impressive and towering personality
and strides of someone who’s walked half the world and owned some of it. All
the tayajis and chachajis and the bhaiyyas
were definitely at the “attention/tension” mode and that made my
“stand-at-ease” also restless. The general round of introductions followed as
the king’s feast was laid and all the bhabhis got down to serving and coaxing
the guests to eat. Random fact#2: Now we are much defamed for over-feeding
using statements that are dipped in just the right amount of cajoling and
emotional blackmail and facial expressions that are so distressed at your
refusal that you feel like an executioner. This happens so much that my father
lives in mortal fear of being invited to our house for dinner. He gives up on
food since morning for he knows his drink would be refilled before it reached
the bottom and plate reloaded before he opens his mouth to say ‘no’.

Anyways, when my turn came
going through the chronological order, almost like saving the best for last, Mr
Kasliwal, THE tycoon stopped before me and smiled, “So you are Suruchi?”

Have you ever seen a magic
show on stage in which a magician cuts a woman into pieces and then shows her moving
in different boxes kept at a distance? I had the exactly same expression. And
have you seen a parent whose ten years old child has peed in his pants and
dropped the cake just as the party is nearing its zenith of being termed as
‘the party of the year’? That was my husband’s expression and a little less
aghast but definitely concerned reflections were marked on the faces of the
others. Now wtf had I done?

“Ji”, I managed to speak
out and my lips alternating in doing a dance between rising into a smile and
drooping with anxiety and hands almost shivering in such a timid handshake I
could have been mistaken for a bunny. And in the next minute, without any
warning, he hugged me with a roaring laughter. Now have you seen the expression
on the face of a highly placed Incomes Tax official who has broken an expensive
vase in some defaulter’s house and knows that they can’t do a fuck about it?
Now that was MY expression. I was being embraced by a random stranger in front
of everyone in the family and my super-conservative husband when it comes to
this and no one could do a fuck about it.

“You read my blog?” yes, we suck sometimes in asking the obvious and
appearing totally dumb, just at the moment we have been complimented for our
wit #God couldn’t find another moment to show me personification of irony.

“Of course I do, in fact
just the other day I showed the ‘virginity’ post to my son, teasing him with
queries if he went through the same and we laughed about it, didn’t we Jyoti?”

And all eyes now moved
from him at one end to Jyoti at the other, like they do in a tennis match. And
Jyoti just beamed with such sweet smiles that were it words, it would sound as
the sweetest compliment.

“I am so honoured, thank
you. I never realized...”

“Oh but not your fault, I
never comment and when I do, I use the anonymous feature. It is not easy to do
all this with my real profile. Haven’t you noticed all that showering of my
complete adulation in so many recent posts as “anonymous”?

“Oh my god, the one with
whom I enter into mindless banter. I am so sorry. I just didn’t think...”

And he burst into a boisterous
laughter again.

“It’s not your fault. How
would you know who I was?

He turned now to my
father-in-law’s eldest brother, who was as alien to the entire subject at hand
as “Whill you do phrandsheep by me?”-kinda
people are to English. “Mr Arora, you have a gem of a writer in your family? Itna talent hain Kanpur jaise sheher mein,
it is amazing!” And eyes back to me again, “I thought you looked familiar when
I saw you with everyone as I entered, but never did I think that the Suruchi
Arora I have been reading so voraciously from a few months would belong to this
family.”

By now I had gotten used
to the sudden tilt of the spotlight bulb on my proud little head and I was
smiling almost comfortably. I had to almost physically stop my finger from
rising against them all in an accusing posture. So you people, who thought I
spend useless hours on the computer and ‘what blogging-shlogging she does, we
only know of water logging’ kinda retorts-here was a mooh tod jawab! I did not know or care how he stumbled upon my
blog, all I knew and wanted to know was how much he loved my posts. He was no
longer the feared Mr Kasliwal-he was transformed into just another fan and me
as the Blog Goddess on the altar that I often placed myself on.

My husband also butt in
now, “Oh she writes amazingly well! She even has 250 followers now...” Shhh, abhi
celebrity bani nahi ki autograph and photograph greedy log ki line lag gaye! Ya right, as though you read Mr Parmeshwar of Pati
variety and as though you would have ever known how many, had I not hammered it
about a 50 times into your too-dipped-in-work head, as soon as the figure
turned to 250!

“I know Mr Gautam and you
are a very lucky man. I hope you know that. In fact just the other day, I
mentioned your wife and her absolutely riot writing to Anil...”

Anil who I thought-Anil
his secretary, Anil Kumble, Anil Kapoor may be...

Looking at our blank
expressions, he clarified, “Anil Ambaniiii and he was very interested in knowing
more....”

And just at that precise
moment, my glory-shory could not be digested by jealous onlookers and I was
visibly and actually being shaken. “Get up Suruchi, the guests have come...”
Now that was my husband, doing rightly what he always does in the real
world-check me out of my reverie. I had sauntered again into my imagination
world and brought back just at the climax-you know how you ‘get turned on to
the hilt and then are told-we’ll do it tomorrow’ kinda expression spread on my
face as Mr Kasliwal and his wife came, did a “Namaste” to me, ate and chatted with
the others and left just like that-without any screech of car brakes, without
any happy coincidence and without making me go anywhere near that Blog Goddess
altar again! Sigh!

P.S.1 The moral of this
story is that being anonymous can be injurious to everyone’s health. So all
those who come here, read and go away without doing any cho-cha in the comment
box with your name, you realize how years of therapy may be needed to get me to
overcome this mind fuck.

P.S.2 Not all the absurd
always happens with me-sometimes I attract it by my power of imagination.

P.S.3 If this post ever
reaches Mr Kasliwal by some cruel game of fate, please remember to be sporting
about it-mere bread and butter ka sawaal hain! And also you should read the
Virginity post along with the others, maybe even recommend them to Anil.

P.S. 4 Sorry to put you
through such a long post that turned out to be a phoos pataka-damp squib in the
end. I guess it is my answer to God-what goes around, comes around!

Never in my entire existence did I like an anti-climax so much. Was about to strangulate myself for commenting on THAT post, if such a thing, self-strangulation that is, could somehow be done. But then, what a relief it was. Tell you, that was scary! If you keep writing like this, somewhere some poor soul might as well pass away :D. Icing on the cake..I work for Reliance..double panga!!

it's missing a slow motion scene of Him and his wife running towards you with an autograph book through the yellow fields :) But wah!! Everyone who's reading this is gonna be going 'wow!! i gotta tell my friends that I read the same blog as a celebrity and she replies to my comments too' :)

I was about to ping my sister and tell her that u know the Suruchi Arora i was telling u about...she is a celebrity...she is in my facebook and had even commented on my blog u know...how amazing is that ..? and then I read the climax. Now this is super cool stuff !

I GOT A HEART ATTACK! If someone came upto me and said...U R RED HANDED arent u? I have caught u RED HANDED! I read ur blog!!I WOULD FAINT THEN AND THERE!!!Thank God it was just a dream :PBut yeh I too would have been jealous of u :P

Last time i said you r one of the best writers i have read,i stand vindicated now..

When i stumbled upon your blog i was so impressed that i read almost all of your postings.Not even a single post was uninteresting..The best thing about your writing is that when u write sarcastically or any other way it appears....Readers can relate to it...Not like few writers who shout from rooftop that they are writing sarcastically and readers should intrepret that way even if they dont find any sarcasm

@Maiths,Whoooo hooooo...the purpose was not to banao ullu-pucca yaar...I actually sat there and thought ki kitna acha ho agar kuch aisa ho and then checked myself coz I go on those lines too often for my own good!:-)You make me now feel sooooo good that I created a psudo-suspense post even without intending it!:-)

@Avinash,Haha-and I am so glad you liked the anti-climax and soooo liked it:-)Please don’t strangulate yourself, as it is there are a handful of comment providers on this page-each one of you is precious for me:-) And no poor soul would pass away-mein hoon na, pass him over here;-)

And you work for Reliance, chalo acha hain, what Nitin couldn’t do perhaps you could-chalo, kar lo duniya mutthi mein:p

@Menachery,Thank you so much and I hope to see you around!Glad you found this laugh worthy:-)

@Rosh,The slow motion running scene sounds good, but why include the wife?I also thought of adding the romantic angle but then his wife is super beautiful and the bread-butter, bread-butter kept ringing in my ears-is liye maaf kiya bachche ko!:-)And you baby are a bigger celebrity than I could ever fathom to be and I AM SO PROUD of being able to comment on what you write and get you dragged here:-)

@Shady,Haaaaw, chote mote se to hug the-more like say a peck on the cheek is as compared to a kiss...bas 2 seconds ka! So that should not have spilt the beans :-)And I would do with the single malt too...jo bhi free mein aa raha ho usse bhagwan ka prasad samajh kar le lena chahiye! So no need to keep it with you..pass it on!:-)

@Anita,Oye hoye, you were telling your sister about me*going to some cloud 9 minus the parachutes now*Haha...damn the climax, I lost another great mention;-)Thank you!

@Kalpak,I LIKE SADIST, SELFISH COMMENTS...they help me relate better:-)Arre jealousy ke kya baat hain...lemme explain by my A=B=C formula...Now if I am famous and I am friend of U then U are also famous as I...Wow....I can finally use the A-B-C to my advantage:-)

And oye no one would tell you to get a life...you can tell me that when you run into me...let’s start running now, so we bump into each other sooner rather than later:-)

@Red,How would we ever know who Red Handed is? Even if we did bump into each other, how mean is that-you’d be looking at me and smirking for you’d know and think, “ache yeh aise hain!” and we would have no clue.That is why one of P.S. says being anonymous can be injurious to my health:-)And as for jealousy-my solution given to Kalpak works just as well:-)

And I had already melted before the end wondering dude, am I really friend with some super-high-fi-celebrity-status lady. But the point worth noticing here is that we all believed you, which indirectly means that we believe you are good enough to reach that status. Fun, as always, your posts. I hope I get to see you someday in real. :)

@Vinod,Haha..you are so cute and you so make me smile. Thank you! and you’ve been reading my posts? Wow...I am so overwhelmed. Sarcasm is not everyone’s cup of tea-is liye sometimes you have to underline and declare it. It is better to keep it simple:-)

And koi baat nahi P.S. nahi read kiye to-hota hain, hota hain...If I were you guys I would breeze through such long posts that I put you up with-I am so glad you all are more patient than I am:-)

@Aakash,Kaaash, eh?:-)Thank you sooooo much! You are always good for my ego:-)And I too hope I get to talk to you at least some day:-)

i was almost about to scream with joy and excitement when you reached the ambani part..dammmm...aap mujhe zameen mae dhankke se le aayi..!!!hhahahhaa....par kya baat hai..!!!kudos to your imagination..!!and i am sure...the rate at which your fan following is increasing the day won't be far when you would become phamous like that..!!!

I believed the whole thing.. blah! but now that I know abt the whole whole sale brands shrands.. I am gonna get you to get me the suit shuit ka pieces at nice discounted prices for the wedding- mine re.. you know for gifting shfting.. ;P

hehehehaha rofl!!! Suruchi, have been following you, and I know you dont like it.. but i am a silent reader... (i dunno, i feel i wld make a fool of myself, so rarely comment, but do read each of ur blogs)

But this post has worked in your favour, and lol i am commenting..

a brief mention of one of ur previous blogs, wherein you thought, that men touching or hugging women could get the women preggers.. lol, i useddd to soooo think that for such a long time!!!! and I showed that link with roomie in office, and gawd, we were all rollie polli on the floor.. with 10 eyes staring into our cubicles!!

and about this post, well you write so well, that never did anyone doubt that this was just a spoof Luv,Jenny

@Paanipuri Lover,Haha-I liked the tuchhe tuchche part-finally someone who knows what that word means:-)Thank you so much for all the praises always-and ulla banana was not the intention-I actually sat there and thought it all!:-)

@TBB/Chints,Darn, I am not rich yaar-poora post he was based on over-the-topness! And I am also out in the market for adoption and pampering, so join the gang!And amen to our wishes-mil kar phir duniya ke lenge:-)I love you tooooooooooooo <3

@Meoww,Haye aapke mooh mein aapka boyfriend-I would love THAT more than ghee shakkar if someone were to wish me that:-)Yaar the aim was not to bring you neeche with dhakka but push my luck with some-but kabhi kabhi kya se kya hi jaata hain, na:-)Loads of love n hugs back to u too:-)

@Sakshi,Arre come-shum and we will do some bum-chum and then find the suit-shuit and whatever rest you want! Ekdum bade waale discount-shount pe...waise bhi G will take one look at you and kahin free mein he kapda na akatne lage;-)

@Purba,They could be my fans yaar-but then I could also so be flying...We are such queens of wishful thinking re:-)Thank you so much-loved your loving the post:-)

@Anu/anon,My god, this post was partly dedicated to you, you know?You are the anonymous hinted at with whom I had that mad banter on one of the posts:-)Kuch seekha ki nahi post se?:-) And that Abhishek incident you know too...hmmm, now I am almost wondering at whether I created this imaginative piece or is it going to create something for me:-)

Yup, I am the most well read person around ....challenge anybody to a trivia competition ! The mind is crammed with unnecessary facts so I placed the Abhishek incident imm :-) You write so well , Suruchi that it surprises me when you say that you don't read books or I think you said that you used to etc .Thanks for the dedication to me in the blog :-) I'm flattered! First the mention in your interview and then your blog ..bhai wah !

@Jenny,Your comment made me so happy...and also prove that some silent readers are a pleasure:-)And please comment...you would never make a fool of yourself with a fool like me here! And thank you to this post for making you come out-I am obliged:-)And that preggy thing I guess is common with many girls:-)I hope to see you around now...

@Justbcos2pplfellinlove,My god, you have to do something about that very long name:-)Thank you for visiting!

@Anu,The more I read you the more I get convinced about the fact that you are a man-going back to square one now. Yes, I don’t read much now-and all that you would hear here is just mad bantering or mush-don’t know anything beyond that:-)And yes, even the dedication does not help you come out of the shadows-crap, yaar...abhi kuch aur sochna padega:-)

@Sairam,Alright-I would not do this dream thing again, just because you insist so much :-) And why is everyone so jealous-lemme get famous and I will pucca share the glory...mere khushi mein khush hona chahiye na friends ko?:-)Thank you for reading!

@Cinderella,Smart girl...though I wasn’t being cheeky-I actually sat there and visualized this happening for a good ten minutes! Now you should say this girl is being mad:(

Omg Suruchi, I really think there are a whole lot of fans out there who have read your post and not GOT it ( read R-A-J above ). Well if not anything you should appreciate my intellect ! And much as you would prefer to me a man ,I am a woman . In any case , my identity is of no relevance let's just stick to tue content of my feedback. Unless you want me to never come back and comment, that is your call as well. I will respect what you feel about this !

@Anu,You are a great observer-at least two can be hand picked here who did not read the post and commented-it is not a matter of getting...it is the matter of getting to the end!:-)

I do appreciate your intellect and a whole lot more-your comments are as eagerly looked forward to as of some of my blog crushes-and I don’t know why a woman should want to be anonymous to another woman...sigh, some things are beyond my understanding, finally!:-)And zyaada drama mat karo re...stick around and comment, I appreciate that more than I can say:-)

What do you mean a day with magnate But aap mere ko to Mille hi nahin :) when did this happen ..

he he he he How are you doing , sorry for being late .. Now looking forwaard to the day when you will say so You are Bikram :) hamare liye to aap hi magnate ho ji.. beautiful writer makes me smile each time i come to read the article .. So you the best ...

gosh now that i come to think about it, how was i even believing the story in the first place, chances of this happening are not that much.. eh

and thanks for your comment in regard to my story, i appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. :D i was just playing the anonymous stuff cuz I have a lifestyle blog, and you know Kalpak is sexist enough already.

@Karishma,I am sooooooooooooo glad to know you and thank you so much for dropping by-I loved that note and put it up even on my facebook page. It was as though you struck the perfect cord with me for I kind of went through similar emotions once! I hope to see you around and also going now to check you out!Please write more such posts and guest blog for me anytime if you don’t want to put them up on your lifestyle blog-plsssssssssssss:-)